The First Crisis
by flipfloppandas
Summary: Adrien did not have enough information to make a properly educated guess, but there was one thing he knew for certain—in one way or another, Marinette was avoiding Louis. Now he just needed to figure out why.


Disclaimer: I don't own Miraculous Ladybug

Summary: Adrien did not have enough information to make a properly educated guess, but there was one thing he knew for certain—in one way or another, Marinette was avoiding Louis. Now he just needed to figure out why.

Warnings: Aged-up characters. Babies.

The First Crisis

Adrien has never been much of a bragger, but he believed that it was safe to assume that his baby was the most beautiful baby to have ever been a baby.

"Louis Louis bo-bouis. Banana fanna fo-fouis. Fee, fy, mo-mouis. Louis!"

Louis Cheng Agreste. His little prince.

"Adrien, how can Louis sleep if you keep singing that silly song in his face?" he heard Marinette call from a distant. It was then that he realized she had somehow found herself in the dining room, when she was _supposed_ to have been resting on the couch next to him.

"Goodness," he muttered, gently passing off the baby to the grandmother who shared his vibrant green eyes, before standing to his feet. It was moments later when he rounded the archway of the dining room. He took in the sight of his wife, who was still had a bit of a waddle as she set out the forks and spoons to each designated spot around the table, humming all the while. She didn't look up at his entrance, but he knew that she knew that he was there.

"And what do you think are you doing?" Adrien asked, taking her hand before she could grab another fork.

She turned her eyes up to meet his. "'Well, I was _trying_ to set the table. My dad said dinner will be ready soon."

"You couldn't ask someone else to do it?" He pulled her slightly plush body into a hug, her still round belly pressing into his abdomen.

"Well, my dad is cooking dinner, you were holding Louis, Alya and Nino aren't back from picking up the ice-cream yet, my mother is still sick with a headache, and I'd rather not make your parents do chores when they're, you know, kind of guests."

"You should be resting. In case you forgot, I shall remind you that you just gave birth two days ago, princess."

She arched her brow. "I figured since I just gave birth to a prince I'd finally be upgraded to 'queen'."

"Would you like to be?"

She thought for a moment, before smiling, and going on her toes to kiss him. "Nah, sounds like too much responsibility for a brand spanking new mother."

He smiled and kissed her a second time, before releasing her. "Go and sit somewhere. It's unfitting for a princess to do such manual labor."

"Since when was placing utensils in an orderly fashion 'manual labor'?" she questioned, but complied, squeezing past him to head back into the living room.

Adrien then proceeded to complete the task that his wife had started, so giddy that he could not fight the smile that had taken up permanent resident on his face. He could not take his mind off the fact that just in the other room was his tiny, pudgy-faced, little prince. The baby was healthy, and happy, and so loved that Adrien wanted desperately to disregard the stupid table arrangement and go back to hug his son tightly against his chest.

He didn't though. He knew the moment he abandoned his task, Marinette would quickly jump to complete it, and she really did need to rest. There had not been any complications or anything, thankfully, but her body still had been put through quite the toils.

He did however—once he was done with the table, and Tom told him to announce that dinner was ready—rush back to the living room eventually. Alya and Nino had since returned, and the baby had been passed to Marinette, her arms gently bouncing the blue bundle in her arms. Her bright eyes were focused on her mother sitting next to her on the couch. Her attention never broke, even as her fingers maneuvered the pacifier that had just fallen from Louis' mouth back in.

The scene made Adrien smile. Marinette was a mother if he had ever saw one.

"Dinner is ready, everyone," he said then, his hands braced against archway into the room.

He's certain that he wouldn't have noticed, if he had not already been paying close attention to Marinette. Her eyes had shifted away from her mother, and the contentedness that had occupied them suddenly shifted. Now her eyes were plagued with something else—nervousness, it seemed; or maybe even fear.

 _Huh?_

As quickly as the look had surfaced, it disappeared, and a smile once again lit up her face. "Here, mom, take Louis. I need to use the restroom, first."

Adrien watched as the women easily passed the baby between them. He kept his eyes on his wife as she and the rest of the occupants exited the room. No one else seemed to have noticed her wary expression. Had he imagined it then?

Later, as the night progressed on however, he was certain he hadn't. Marinette had proceeded to behave strangely for the entirety evening. It had been rather subtle, and Adrien knows that if he hadn't already known her like the back of his hand, he wouldn't have noticed. Thankfully, he did notice, and now he couldn't help but feel puzzled.

Marinette had been fine feeding Louis during dinner, but had been all too quick to hand the baby over to a cooing Auntie Alya once it was time to return to the living room. She had been as active as she normally was—running around the house and completing errands she believed absolutely needed to be done (despite Adrien's exasperated protests), yet requested that Adrien fetch the extra diapers from the nursery upstairs when Louis had soiled himself whilst in her lap, claiming that she was suddenly too exhausted to do so herself. She had said nothing whilst Nino danced around the living-room with the newborn in his arms, but wouldn't so much as stand up for a picture once the baby was passed back to her.

Adrien didn't have enough information to make a properly educated guess, but there was one thing he knew for certain—in one way or another, Marinette was avoiding Louis.

xXxXx

Three hours later, Adrien was looking thoughtfully down at the baby in his lap. "Do you think we should have spelled his name 'L' 'O' 'U' 'I' 'E'?"

Marinette, whom was resting against his shoulder, twisted her head to look up at him. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, what if he goes to America or something and they pronounce the 'S' at the end? Loui _s_ sounds like an old man's name! How could we possibly subject him to that?"

"Oh the humanity!" she giggled. "I think that's a rather big 'if', Adrien. Besides, if a situation like that ever happened, he would have the opportunity to educate those still ignorant to proper name-pronunciation. He would feel intelligent, and that, in turn, would build his self-confidence and would establish a strong groundwork for future independence."

"I like how you think," he said around a yawn. "We should probably go off too bed."

Marinette stretched her arms high above her head before standing to her feet. She walked a couple paces before turning around, a soft smile on her face as she waited for him to gather his bearings and follow her.

He stood to his feet, though the four long white strings dangling freely from his sneakers caught his attention.

"Oh crap, my shoelaces are untied. Here, hold him for a second."

Her body grew straight and stiff. "Alright."

Adrien arched his brow. He said nothing as he passed the baby off gently, before bending down to fix his laces.

Adrien wracked his brain for every memory he had of Marinette and Louis together. She had held him when he'd been just born—her body was slumped in the hospital bed: boneless, exhausted, and still flooded with epidural anesthesia, yet still managing to pull a smile while Louis cried against her chest. More often than not Louis was tucked in her arms while they waited to be discharged, though she was all too quick to pass him off when Adrien offered to carry him to the car. Aside from the few times earlier that evening, it had mostly been their friends and family holding the baby. Adrien couldn't think of any other times that Marinette held him; he doesn't think she so much as stood up with Louis.

Adrien peered up. The ease that Marinette displayed in the hospital bed and during dinner and on the living room couch was gone. Now, her body was stock-still, horribly tensed, and unnaturally stiff. The soft smile that took resident on her face every time she gazed down at Louis was also gone. Instead of fondness, there was unease and apprehension in her eyes.

Adrien still did not even know what was wrong, but his heart was already broken.

Once his laces were properly knotted, he stood. Marinette jolted out her trance-like nervousness and—not even seeming to notice that it had taken nearly a whole minute for him to tie his shoes—holds her arms out slightly from her body. "Here."

Instead, Adrien steps back. Marinette's eyes immediately fill with panic.

"What's wrong?" he asks her.

She doesn't answer him. "Take him," she insists.

He shakes his head. "Tell me what's wrong first."

Her mouth clenches and her brow twitches like she wants to repeat her demand. She doesn't though, and closes her eyes, breathing harshly from her nose. She knows him just as well as he knows her, so he knows that _she_ knows that there is no way that Adrien can let it go now, not when she is so obviously distressed.

"I don't want to carry him."

Adrien furrows his brow. "Why not?"

Again she struggles within herself—either debating whether or not she wants to tell the truth, or trying to find the right words to do so. She settles with: "I... I'm clumsy."

"You're clumsy?" He repeats, confused. He knows that already of course (how could he ever be unaware of something so adorable?), but the relevance of the statement was lost to him.

"I'm _clumsy_ ," she says again, exasperated. Adrien is alarmed by the tears he sees filling her bluebell eyes. In all of the time that he has known her, she had never been particularly emotional. Even during her pregnancy, the only instances she ever cried were when her hormones had her so frustrated that tears automatically sprung to her eyes without consent. "What if I trip, or fall, or..."

She sighed roughly, closing her eyes against the tears threatening to stream down her face. "I could hurt him, Adrien."

"Oh, Marinette," he said, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around her. She dropped her head against his shoulder, the baby they shared nuzzled perfectly between their chests. "Don't even think like that, princess."

"But I will!" she sobbed, "I'm twenty-six years old and I still can't so much as cross my own living room without stumbling over something! I can't... I can't put my baby at risk like that!"

A sharp whine then rose from in between them. Another whine followed. The raised voice had no doubt awoken Louis.

Marinette backed away and pulled the baby up to her shoulder. She stroked her hand down his tiny back as she bounced her body slightly. She murmured words so low that not even Adrien could decipher them, though he supposed he didn't really need too. These were words meant only to be shared between mother and son, and they calmed Louis until his whines gave away to coos, and his coos subsided to slumber.

Adrien smiled as his broken heart mended itself. "Marinette."

She said nothing, but he knew that she was listening.

"You won't hurt him."

She glanced over at him doubtfully.

"I don't care how clumsy you are; you couldn't hurt him even if you wanted too."

She looked away. Her disbelief was still obvious, but he wouldn't be swayed. There was nothing Marinette could say, no amount of protest she could utter that would change his mind. As far as he was concerned, there no place in the world that was safer than where Louis was right now.

"Come on, princess. Let's go to bed."

"Adrien—"

"You're fine," he interrupted. "I'll be right here, okay?" he soothed.

She was biting her lip, and Adrien could tell that she so desperately wanted to protest. To her credit though she said nothing, only dropped her eyes to scan the floor in front of her. Once she deemed it clear enough, she took a stiff step forward, then another, until finally she was standing beside him.

He smiled encouragingly at her before turning around, and heading towards the staircase.

They walked extremely slowly, every step seeming to take all of Marinette's willpower. Her arms were tight around their son, her eyes torn between watching the floor and focusing ahead of her. Adrien said nothing all the while. He wasn't even watching her cautiously like he knew she wanted him too. It would take a lot of effort to him to force himself to be worried, especially when he knew there was nothing to fear.

When they made it too the steps, Marinette's body grew so rigid that Adrien figured nothing short of a tow truck would force her to move. He stood on the first step waiting, only arching his brow at the pleading look she gave him.

After several moments of Adrien steadily refusing to give in, Marinette resolved herself to taking a long, deep breath. Looking as if she were about to begin the hardest task of her life, she placed one foot on the step beside him, then after another long moment, lifted her second foot to match the first.

They went even slower up the stairs than they did in the living room. Adrien was growing steadily more tired, but he did not push her. Her body was trembling, and the look on her face as each step passed made it seem more and more likely that she would give up.

She was his Marinette, though, and he knew full well that his Marinette never gave up.

Adrien had to put in a large amount of effort to hold back the glee-filled whoop of joy he wanted to release as Marinette passed the final step. The look on her face was of complete disbelief, as if she was truly shocked that she had made it.

Adrien turned away and headed towards their bedroom. She had successfully passed what she had self-appointed as the 'hardest part'; there was nothing left for her too fear.

Once inside their bedroom, he turned around to find Marinette right behind him, the nerves and tension that marred her all but completely gone. She walked carefully, but no longer with fear as she crossed the room. She was especially gentle as she tucked Louis into his bassinet, stroking his hair and laying a kiss on his forehead before pulling away. She turned around, and gave Adrien a sheepish smile.

He grinned. "Well done, my lady."

Her cheeks flushed as a hand went to awkwardly stroke behind her head. "I might have overreacted just a tad bit."

Adrien stepped closer. "Just a tad?"

She rolled her eyes and gave him an exasperated look, but accepted the hug and kiss he offered.

"So, should I plan to escort you downstairs to breakfast tomorrow or..."

Again she rolled her eyes and swatted his shoulder, her hidden smile threatening to take over her face. "No, kitty, I think I can manage. Now, if you're done teasing me, I'd like to get some sleep before your baby decides to wake up in the middle of what would have otherwise been a peaceful night."

"Ah, yes, I imagine carrying an eight-pound baby up half a flight of stairs must be very exhausting."

"And just for that, you are now responsible for tending to Louis's needs when he does."

Adrien feigned indignation. He soon found himself smiling contentedly though as the long breathes of his princess and the soft snores of his prince filled the room.

' _First parenting crisis successfully conquered'_ , he thought. _'Bring on the next.'_

The End.

You've probably noticed that I included mama Agreste. I did that simply because I assume that if she is not in fact, dead, then she would have returned to Adrien's life by now. Thank you for reading!


End file.
